The Electoral Court rejects the opponents’ actions and maintains the mandate of former Lava Jato judge Sergio Moro as senator.

Late Tuesday, Brazil’s Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) upheld the senatorial mandate of former Operation Lava Jato judge Sérgio Moro, to which the former magistrate was elected in 2022 but which has been questioned by bipartisans, saying there were frauds during the elections several violations. campaign. The decision to reject both claims and maintain Moro’s mandate was made unanimously by the seven TSE judges who make up the plenary of that court.

Oddly enough, demands for the annulment of Sergio Moro’s mandate were made by two of the largest antagonists in the political and party life of Brazil: the Workers’ Party (PT) of President Lula da Silva and the Liberal Party (PL) of President Lula da Silva. former President Jair Bolsonaro. Both accused Sérgio Moro of abusing economic power, spending far more than legally allowed on his election campaign, and misusing the media to promote his name, among several other allegations of alleged wrongdoing.

However, judges at the highest level of Brazilian electoral justice considered that any excess funding of Moro’s campaign could even lead to other penalties, but not to the loss of the mandate, and, in the same way, they also did not see misuse of funds. communication of the former head of Lava Jato to promote himself. Confirming a decision made a few weeks earlier by the TRE-PR (the Regional Electoral Court of the State of Parana, which elected the former judge), the TSE judges considered that Sergio Moro was already known at national and international level even before the 2022 elections thanks to his role at the head of the anti-corruption Operation Lava Jato, which even convicted and imprisoned the country’s current president, Lula da Silva, and did not need to misuse the press for PR.

The decision, taken even more unanimously, ends a political dispute that has worried both allies and opponents of the former judge, who left the judiciary in 2019 to become Jair Bolsonaro’s justice minister and, after breaking with the government, embarked on a political career that seemed , was very close to finishing. Until a few weeks ago, it was almost certain that Sergio Moro would lose his mandate, and several politicians, opponents and allies have already entered the race to replace him in possible new elections in Paraná, even the former judge’s wife herself. MP Rosangela Moro, who changed her electoral registration from São Paulo, the state where she was also elected in 2022, to Paraná so that she could challenge her husband’s mandate in the elections if he loses it.